The courtyard was empty.
Seren sat with his back to the greenhouse wall, arms resting on his knees.
The stone was cold. He didn't move.
The bruises pulsed faintly beneath his uniform, but he didn't bother checking them.
It was quiet here.
No lectures. No eyes. No noise.
Just space.
And memory.
Unwelcome. Persistent.
Few months ago – Practice Dueling Grounds
The dueling ring wasn't much — rough stone, a few silver lines etched for channeling, mostly worn down. A few students sat off to the side, bored. The crowd stood in a loose knot near the wall, talking like they owned the place.
Seren stood at the edge of the ring.
Waiting.
Still.
Across from him was Aren Lys — the new transfer. People said he had strong resonance control, but that was all. No family name. No reputation. Just a clean uniform and steady posture.
"Try not to embarrass yourself, mudblood," Callen said, not even looking at him as he spoke.
Seren didn't answer. He didn't care to.
He just waited for the match to start.
It was only practice.
No scores. No stakes.
Still, Aren moved first — fast and controlled. He knew what he was doing.
Seren tried to keep up. His flames responded, but not cleanly. His veins wavered. Every cast bent a little wrong.
He adjusted, then overcorrected.
Everything felt off.
The pressure hit quietly.
Not like a wave — just a slow, suffocating squeeze.
He could hear someone snorting behind him.
Someone whispering.
His hands were sweating.
His chest felt tight.
Then—
A sound. Sharp, splitting. Like something cracking next to his head.
And the fire broke loose.
It snapped out of him sideways — not toward Aren, but wild and wide. The air hissed.
One of the channel lines flared red.
Part of the wall charred black.
A professor's coat caught a flame.
Aren stumbled, coughing, a burn on his sleeve.
Seren stood there. Not sure what he'd done.
He didn't speak. Didn't explain.
Didn't look at anyone.
But everyone agreed on one thing:
He lost control.
And something in him broke that day.
Back in the present, Seren shifted.
A vine touched his hand, but he left it there.
His eyes stayed unfocused, staring at nothing.
"Heard he lost it during a duel."
"Some say he was cursed during his Awakening."
"Or maybe he just snapped 'cause he couldn't win."
"Isn't he the one who burned a professor's coat?"
The whispers never really went away.
After the incident, Callen was the first to back off. Started mocking him in front of everyone. Gave him names that stuck.
The rest followed.
Seren never argued. Never apologized.
He didn't remember all of it.
Just the sound.
That sharp, splitting noise.
The air still smelled like ash three days later.
Even after they scrubbed the arena, repainted the lines, and patched the professor's robe with restoration spells, it lingered.
Like something unfinished.
Or a mistake no one wanted to name.
Some said it was leftover magic from miscast fire.
Others claimed it was the mark of a Vein failure — a rupture that should've never happened in open combat.
Seren stopped correcting them.
The smell was still in his nose.
Two days after the duel…
He stood in front of the Disciplinary Circle — a half-circle of robed faculty and senior students acting as arbiters. Behind them, the walls pulsed with soft silver light — interface lines tied to the academy's record network. One flickered in the edge of his vision, displaying some diagnostic readout.
He didn't bother looking.
He never did.
He couldn't get the words right.
His voice kept catching.
His memory skipped like a scratched recording.
"I didn't mean to," he said quietly.
He tried to explain. The spell backlash. The panic. The way the attack bent in his hand. The way his Veins felt off — like something else had moved through him. Fast. Wrong. Not his.
No one responded.
Then came the questions:
"Did you intend to cause harm?"
"Were you told to humiliate Aren Lys?"
"Did Callen Drosh initiate the match?"
Seren looked up.
Callen sat in the audience — polished boots, perfect posture, not a thread out of place. The boy who always told him what to say. Who to challenge. Who to mock.
Their eyes met.
Callen didn't blink.
Then he stood.
And said:
"Seren Vael acted on his own. I told him not to engage with Lys. He ignored me."
The room went quiet.
Seren opened his mouth, then stopped.
There was nothing to say that would matter.
Because if he named Callen now — if he told the truth — it wouldn't matter.
The Drosh family held weight at every level of the academy. Ties to more influential people. Quiet power behind official names.
Seren wasn't backed by anyone.
He kept quiet.
The Council passed judgment.
"No formal punishment. The incident is ruled accidental."
"But due to instability in your resonance in veins, Seren Vael, you will be suspended for evaluation and removed from competitive dueling for the remainder of the year."
Three weeks later.
He returned.
Not to silence — but whispers.
Then laughter.
Then shoves in the hallway.
Then names scratched into the door of his dorm.
He asked Callen once — quietly, near the back stairwell of the dormitory tower — why he'd done it.
Callen didn't even look annoyed. Just bored.
"I didn't do anything. You lost control. I saved your ass by making sure you weren't expelled. You're welcome."
Then came the smirk.
And then he walked away.
That's when something shifted.
Not the Veins.
Not the magic.
Just… the part of him that still thought this place could be home.
The part that used to believe they were friends.
That it meant something.
Now, months later, in the quiet light of the courtyard, Seren sat alone.
Scraped hands. Bruised ribs.
And no one left to speak for him.
Not even himself.
[Memory Thread Complete]
[Emotional Sync: Low – 12%]
[Seal Distortion: Detected]
[Soul Anchor Stability: Declining]
Searching for Resonance Anchor…]
He didn't hear the chime.
Didn't react to the pulsing translucent screen flickering in the corner of his sight.
He just sat there, eyes dull, thoughts spiraling like smoke from an old fire.
Until a voice — not his — stirred faintly in the darkness behind his eyes.
"Do you want to stay broken?"